The purpose of the IDEA Data Center is to improve the capacity of States to meet their Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) data collection and reporting requirements under sections 616 and 618 of the IDEA. Center activities will include:

(a) improving data infrastructure by coordinating and promoting communication and effective data governance strategies among relevant State offices including State educational agencies (SEAs) and State lead agencies, local educational agencies (LEAs), schools, early intervention service (EIS) providers, and TA providers to improve the quality of the IDEA data;

(b) using results from the Department's auto-generated error reports to communicate with State IDEA Data Managers and other relevant stakeholders in the State (e.g., ED Facts Coordinator) about data that appear to be inaccurate and provide support to the State (as needed) to enhance current State validation procedures to prevent future errors in State-reported IDEA data;

(c) using the results of the Department's review of State-reported data to help States ensure that data are collected and reported from all programs providing special education and related services within the State;

(d) addressing personnel training needs by developing effective informational tools (e.g., training modules) and resources (e.g., cross-walk documents about IDEA and non-IDEA data elements) about data collection and reporting requirements that States can use to train personnel in schools, programs, agencies, and districts;

(e) supporting States in submitting data into ED Facts by coordinating with ED Facts TA providers (i.e., Partner Support Center) about IDEA-specific data reporting requirements and providing ED Factsreports and TA to States to help them improve the accuracy of their IDEA data submissions;

(f) improving IDEA data validation by using results from data reviews conducted by the Department to work with States to generate tools (e.g., templates of data dashboards) that can be used by States to accurately communicate data to local data-consumer groups (e.g., school boards, the general public) and lead to improvements in the validity and reliability of data required by IDEA; and

(g) using results from the Department's review of State-reported Annual Performance Report (APR) data to provide intensive and individualized TA to improve the accuracy of qualitative information provided in the APR about the State's efforts to improve its implementation of the requirements and purposes of IDEA, and to more accurately target its future improvement activities.